Thank goodness for synthetic rubber. (And yes, it’s Friday in many parts of the world.)
My iPod Shuffle ran out of juice yesterday just as the deepest, darkest, most tedious phase of cell culture was about to commence. And it was then I made the happy discovery that the iPhone touch screen still functions with a nitrile-clad finger:
This was by no means a given. During the recent cold snap, I’d found that it was impossible to operate an iPhone wearing woolly gloves. Hence, I encouraged a little snag that appeared in the right index finger to develop into a full-fledged hole:
I’ve since experimented with other objects and textures, and it’s amazing how they’ve managed to design the iPhone’s screen so that it is responsive only to the touch of humans.
And scientists.
Apparently it’s something to do with resistivity, and I really want to know if a screen protector would stop it working.
My phone has a stick-on screen protector on it already. Specially designed to be compatible, I would imagine.
ooh. takes notes
Resistance is futile.
hehe. I understand the desire to fiddle around with the iPhone (although I am still holding out), but what then is the point of wearing gloves?
By the way, if I can make a plug, these nitrile gloves are quite wonderful relative to the classic blue/purple ones.
I haven’t gotten around to buying an iPhone. Are they as good as everyone says?
I thought it was related to the heat from “human fingers”. I tried with the stick from the Nintendo DS and didnt work.
Which other objects and textures have you tried?
We should make a list! 🙂
@ Richard: Yes, the iPhone still functions with the very tough but thin plastic overlays.
@ Jenny: Cool discovery about nitrile gloves,
@ Wilson – yes, they are. Make sure you get the 3G version.
When I was doing my PhD I had to spend a week measuring bones in the basement of the Natural History Museum. It was FREEZING and I had to work in a duffel coat and fingerless gloves. Happily I didn’t have to manipulate anything more fiddly than vernier calipers and a ballpoint, and iPhones hadn’t been invented.
Hi Irene – I think my woolly-gloved finger was pretty warm – I thought it was a texture problem. Interestingly, you can operate the log-in slider with a post-it note between the screen and a finger, but you can’t tap any buttons that way.
Pencils and pens don’t work. I was really surprised that erasers didn’t, though (that’s a ‘rubber’, for my British audience. Haven’t tried the US version of that object!). So maybe with the nitrile gloves, it’s warmth plus texture? Must try it with gloves I’ve chilled at -20 for a few minutes.
Heather, I’m wearing gloves to protect me from my cells, not the other way around. I know I have an immune system with a healthy foreign graft rejection system in place, but the way these buggers grow, I’m inclined to be superstitious on this one.
The iPod is far superior for TC work. To manipulate the iPhone’s iPod function (except volume), you have to take it out of your pocket, do the slider, and enter a passcode if you have one. The Shuffle can be clipped to your lap coat and nudged along very quickly.
Good music choice – I love the Ting Tings album 🙂
Like many touch screens that won’t work with a stylus, the iPhone/iPod Touch’s appears to be capacitative, i.e. it’s the way the thing you touch it with changes the local electrical capacitance that matters. See this article for details.
It’s definitely TC music, the Ting Tings. I use different sorts of music for different activities, such as taking the Underground, walking to and from the station, using the microscope and so forth. That’s why the Shuffle is better – I’m always hitting tunes I like, but am not in the mood to hear just then.
(yes, I know, multiple playlists would solve that. but who has the time?)
Our posts crossed, Brian,
So…nitrile allows that but not paper. Interesting.
And the geeks march on.
(perplexed) But let’s say you had some of those cells on your gloved fingers, are they not now on your iPhone, waiting for your next unprotected rapport?
The Shuffle is a popular accessory in the local TC room as well, though there is an ancient FM radio usually spitting out the same old tired ’80s playlist in addition.
Ah, we’re not allowed to have audible music in our institute, which I really miss.
I don’t touch my phone with anything but a fresh change of gloves, Heather.
(The thing about HeLa, according to urban lab legend, is that they can take hold under fingernails! I love a creepy shaggy-dog story.)
Yummy – look at all these other things those HeLa cells might meet and hit it off with!
I’m eating my lunch! No fair!
(the habitual UCL canteen Friday fish and chips, naturally.)
I had to try an experiment (once a scientist, always a scientist)
Cat paws can manipulate the iPod Touch screen, too!
This is scary. When the feline revolution comes, not even our gadgets are safe! Or, they’re probably already using them to communicate.
Just to report on the results of the experiment entitled “Effect of temperature on touchpad responsiveness of nitrile gloves”, which are hot (?) off the press:
Method: Nitrile glove was chilled at -20 for 2 hours. Glove was quickly donned and effect on iPhone 3G slider and button action was ascertained.
Result: Responsiveness identical to room-temperature donned control glove.
Conclusion: this suggests that body heat is irrelevant — at least in humans. Further studies with cat pads are warranted.
very interesting!
ps. I actually thought about putting a finger on ice for a bit ( 🙂 )and then try.
I hope your hand survived the experiment ok – or did you find a human lab rat? 🙂
(Lovely strikeout on my previous post – the perils of using dashes. Sorry about that — looks like a corrected thesis.)
I feel comfortable about ruling out temperature at this stage. And it was my hand!
Are you all getting commissions from apple? Just wondering.
If they want to throw money at me, it would be churlish to refuse.
My cat subject did not want to sign the release form for the experiment in which her paws would be cooled to -20 degrees. Something about trauma from being born in a barn in a Canadian winter…
Just grab him/after directly after coming in from the cold. Our cat’s pads are frigid first thing – and of course he always insists on leaping onto our lap and warming them there.
Who or what is/are the Ting Tings? Is it de trop to listen to such things when one is over 40? My listening of choice at the moment is a hardcore fusion mix of Scott Henderson and Tribal Tech, Stanley Clarke, Virtual Tech Tones, Liquid Tension Experiment, John McLaughlin and Niacin. Full of interest without being obtrusive, and no irritating vocals.
Henry – you know full well that I’m over 40, so there’s your answer. But if you don’t like intrusive vocals, I imagine that you’d be quite irritated by the Ting Tings.
Spoiled Indoor Cat avoids the balcony like the plague if the temperature drops below zero. The door still has to be opened for fresh air and interesting scents, but all four paws stay indoors on the heater.
@ Jenny – hang about, I thought you didn’t like intrusive vocals while you worked…? And to me you’ll never be over 21. Or 25, anyway.
Thanks Henry, you old charmer.
As I said, the situation dictates the music. TC is so mind-numblingly repetitive that you need to be shaken up to know you’re still alive. I can’t handle a lot of lyrics when I’m trying to actually concentrate on something intricate.
Eva, perhaps an open tin of tuna on the balcony might do the trick?
Supreme geekery! I love it!
But to important questions — were the peas mushy or not?
Cath, you’re only as geeky as you feel.
Well, I feel pretty geeky. You’re talking to the woman who wanted to name her cats Intron and Exon, with Exon being the more expressive one. (Husband overruled).
Sounds like your husband needs some post-transcriptional regulation.
Or some alternative splicing, even!
I’ll have to translate all this for him
aaaaaaaaand puns are go.
IRES’d my case.
Stop. Right now.
RNA other people bothered by this?
The last remaining reader just put his codon and flounced out.
Amber alert! The on-topicness of this thread has been kidnapped!
Awesome, the Ting Tings! 😀
I really, really want an iphone now.
ipod classic doesn’t respond so well to latex gloves..
Aaaaand…we’re back on.
Thanks Linda.
It’s actually pretty naughty to use an iPod in TC, really. Distracting, more glove changes, etc.
Opal-ese – I’m sorry that Nonsense stopped.
If they let you have a radio in there gloves could be saved! Eva, I love the cat paw expts!
I’d really like to contribute something meaningful to all this Apple-ish lovey-doveyness, but the most up-to-date thingy I have is a 2 gig iPod nano (old styleee), which doesn’t.have.a.touch.screen.
I can, however, report that a silicon sleeve makes it rather irritating to play Vortex, and that the little dial thing works with a finger through paper (not so good, but works) or through a plastic zip-lock baggie (works perfectly well). Either end of a Sharpie, or the metal pocket clip, doesn’t work at all.
On the topic of geekery, I know a Proton Rahman. His father is a physicist.
I ting I’m going to bed now.
I heart Sharpies. It’s one of the things I miss most about being American. If someone ever wants to make my day, smuggle a few through enemy lines for me. Black, and a nice mixture of the fine points and thick points, please. You can throw in a couple of packets of Cheetos while you’re at it.
In the interest of balance, I have to say that the iPhone does have a few disadvantages compared to my lovely ex-Nokia. Let me count the ways:
No FM radio.
Can’t take videos.
Can’t send mms (pictures attached to a text – so when you’re in a foreign country and don’t want to pay for email/internet, you can’t send pics at all).
Very hard to text one-handed while on the fly, so that rules out texting with an umbrella.
On the touch screen keypad, the dot and @ symbols are on separate toggle-able pages from the letters, so when typing in a web address or email address as a password, you have to keep flipping back and forth (the Blackberry, in contrast, actually has an entire “.com” button)
If you don’t set a passcode, the body of incoming text messages flash right onto your screen and stays there. It can’t be switched off.
On the topic of geekery, I know a Proton Rahman. His father is a physicist.
Richard, ages ago I met a Belgian scientist at a preparatory one-week course for people deploying with the British Antarctic Survey (short: BAS). His wife was pregnant when he left, and his son was born while he was in a field camp on the Antarctic Peninsula. He named him Bas (which is a ‘real’ name)…
bq. If someone ever wants to make my day, smuggle a few through enemy lines for me.
Now she tells me.
I think it would be cool to be named after something scientific if it was also a real name, like Bas. It’s a story you can always tell.
I’m still trying to figure out how you took that photo at the top since the camera is on the back of the iPhone. Some kind of ultra-sophisticated light guide…
Oh wait. Do you have another camera?
On the subject of screen protectors, I don’t like the idea of them. I haven’t bothered and have suffered no ill effects after just over two months. The screen (glass?) does seem to be rather tough. Though I do have to make sure to keep my keys out of the same pocket as the phone.
Oh wait. Do you have another camera?
giggles
Dogs paws work, too. Which is weird, maybe, because their skin is really thick on the pads.
The iPhone does have a .com button on the main keyboard, but only on certain screens. It’s there if you tap the URL field on the browser, but not when you’re entering an email address (although the @ is there then), and not if you’re entering a password on a website, even if the password is an email address.
I’d like a customisable keyboard – I use a lot of .ca sites.
I’m getting quite good at this disagreeing thing.
ooh, I didn’t know it was customizable – thanks for the tip, Cath.
In perusing the O2 site for another reason, I found a tariff for sending mms, so it must be possible. Hang if I can find it, though – I have pressed literally every button there is (without woolly gloves).
@Stephen: Yes! That was taken with my trusty Cybershot. But your comment reminds me of yet another iPhone disadvantage: doing the classic mobile phone maneuver of taking a picture of yourself with friends is nearly impossible, because the shutter is a screen button that is really hard to find and press without looking directly at the screen — which is on the reverse. I really liked the Nokia’s little reflective thingie so you could center your self-shot, as well, and the button was physical hardware, so easy to use.
The iPhone: not for megalomaniacs.
And I did realize the @ key is sometimes with the letters — just never on any of the login screens I seem to use most.
Wrong again, Rohn – it’s not, but I’d like it to be 😉
Maybe we’ve been looking at differnt screens. Mine occasionally shuffle.
Eva: your dog tale makes me think of the bathroom scale which now comes with impedance measurements through the soles of your feet to tell you how much proportion of your body is fat (insulating) versus everything else conducting. And how sometimes if you step on with dry feet, it doesn’t work. Meaning that after a winter, my feet can be so dry and scaly.. let’s not go there. Anyhow, it works well after a shower, when everything is plumped up again.
Would one of you iPhone users want to experiment with a stick of “crab” surimi as a kind of pseudo-flesh extension?
@Heather: No.
_heart Sharpies. It’s one of the things I miss most about being American. If someone ever wants to make my day, smuggle a few through enemy lines for me. Black, and a nice mixture of the fine points and thick points, _
give the girl an address via email and we will se if Christmas comes really early this year 🙂
btw, the @ key has moved from the “old” Swedish keyboard a la English with the “electronic version” from being under the 2 to being under the \, super annoying. (or maybe it might be a thing with the mac and the pcs? I still make mistakes though…)
that rules out texting with an umbrella
Jenny, that’s just as well. I think you’d probably break the thing if you poked its touchscreen with an umbrella.
I’ll get my coat now.
P.S. Also forgot to mention that my wife has an iPod Shuffle, which I bought for her. No screen whatsoever. I absolutely hate the thing, but she likes it, so mission accomplished I guess.
Amazing how Apple can get away with selling both things with over-engineered and wildly insane user interfaces (iPhone), and almost no user interface at all (Shuffle). Incredible.
I can now report back that the iPhone also works with ski gloves at -9 C and 2800 meters in a blizzard, if you have the sort with rubberized fingers.
It doesn’t work if you’ve been eating fish and chips.
The iPhone comes with rubberized fingers?
Henry, I’m glad someone finally tested the role of lipids in this important process.
This is SO confusing! So it’s NOT the temperature or (human) skin that matters, but still a lot of things don’t work. Is it electric charge? Are rubberized ski gloves electrically charged? Do the gloves work on their own (not worn)? (This will never pass peer review with a control experiment with unworn gloves!)
Without. Never pass without. Not without a better proof reader either. I should stick to animal handling.
Eva – can animals operate the touchscreen?
The results of the animal experiments are mentioned in previous comments on this post! In summary: cats (N=1) and dogs (N=1, big dog) can indeed operate the touch screen with the pads on their paws!
I think it’s all texture — human fingertips, rubbery gloves, pet pads all pass muster. I’m cursing myself for not having tested the cold ski glove without my hand in it but to be honest, my fingers were so cold I doubt temperature plays a role.
I was hoping Henry would weigh in with the chicken, guinea pig and girrafe data.
You need something with the same level of conductivity as a human finger. So there are gloves available with special fingertap pads.
And my phone works fine through a postit – though the screen’s a bit hard to see…
we’re not going to get any discussion of EH at the RI, are we? We’ll be chopping off human fingers and testing them on touchscreens.
It’s Science Gone Mad, I tell you.
Looking forward to that podcast.